1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for controlling the operation of a magnetic information device, for example, a video tape recorder (VTR), and more specifically, to an apparatus for located a desired position upon a magnetic recording medium used with such magnetic information device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, there are several types of tape position selecting apparatus. According to one such prior art system, an address code signal is recorded on an address code track in digital form. Since this system provides very precise tape position selection, it is often used in document retrieval systems that uses a VTR and in a video tape editing systems. Unfortunately this prior art system requires a special code signal and address track, and complex circuitry. In addition, it can be applied only to a video tape that has been recorded by a particular type of VTR.
A video tape position selector often does not need to be as precise as the above described prior art system. For instance, if one program is to be selected from among 5 programs recorded on a cassette tape, relatively rough selection of tape position will do. One possible technique to achieve this purpose is to insert and record a tone burst at the starting position of each program on, for example, an audio channel; but this first requires a special recording device for the tone burst, and secondly, it can select only the tape position on which the tone burst is recorded. In other words, it is not capable of finding tape positions which have not been previously marked.